Well I feel better now

Every now and then I think that the news is written just for me. That is, the story (or stories if I'm lucky) are so bizarre that they seem tailor-made for a person whose life is a series of ludicrous misadventures and mishaps of epic proportions. I am the person who broke her arm playing dodgeball in fifth grade. Nobody really gets hurt playing dodgeball. It's like getting whiplash playing golf. I also fractured my leg tripping on an actual twig when I was six. This event so befuddled doctors at the hospital that they virtually prayed for some kind of dramatic child abuse cover-up. And I'm not even going to discuss the perm I got at thirteen that positively defines mishap of epic proportion. If Shaft had been a white, teenage girl with a box of Brillo tied to her head, he would have been me.

Someone like me craves news that's just plain weird to feel...I don't know, normal. Well today I hit paydirt. THREE stories so bizarre that, as with watching a kid bust their arm getting hit by a soft rubberball going at less than a mile per hour, you just can't look away. Here they are in no particular order:

1. A man trains for the Antarctic Ultra Marathon (62.1 miles) in a storage freezer. One day he cycled in the freezer for 24 hours straight. weird

2. Many Japanese folks who travel in France suffer from what is being dubbed "Paris Syndrome", a psychic break caused by the harsh reality of rude French people. weirder

3. Twin girls were born in Australia to a half Jamaican / half English mother and a German father. One girl has entirely white features and coloring. The other has entirely black features and coloring. The odds are said to be in the high millions. weirdest

That's Mister ED to you

Since quitting my high-paying TV job and re-inventing myself as a stay-at-home "hypoallergenic baker" with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I've had a lot of time on my hands to reflect on many, many, many things. Important things like what will I have for lunch? When should I take my nap? Does this wifebeater match this pair of sweatpants? How many people have viewed my Myspace page? In between talking to myself and going to the bathroom, I've also devoted some serious thinking time to daytime television and the commercials aired therein. You can tell a lot about the world you're living in from watching TV between the hours of 9am and 5pm and - in case you were wondering - our world eats crap, has high cholesterol, sues each other and has babies by their mothers' husbands. Another thing that seems to be rampant in the country right now is Erectile Dysfunction, so common it has a jaunty little nickname - ED - which is supposed to make you think it's like a poker buddy who's always getting into your business. Why can't I bang my wife? Oh, it's ED. What's coming between me and that cute little secretary? That would be ED. Why do I feel like a complete failure every time I'm naked? ED again! Seriously, are mens' penises collapsing at an alarming rate nowadays or is it just me? I understand that various drugs and illnesses can bring on some "performance" issues, but is it so bad we need three different drugs to combat the problem? And why do the ads have to be so terrifying? They're all about older couples finally being able to do the nasty wherever and whenever they damn well please without having to worry about the kids, the neighbors, the cops, the laws of God. One drug claims that you can wait up until 36 hours after you've taken it to actually have sex (presumably, you're not walking around with a woody for almost two days). This is supposed to make you feel like you can be spontaneous again. The ad shows an elderly couple heading on up to the bedroom when their kids and grandkids show up. Pardon me, but oh barf. Trust me when I say I'm never going to be able to visit my parents again without wondering if they were necking just moments before answering the door. And as if this wasn't bad enough, the possible side effects are always listed off in a sultry bedroom voice. My favorite warning is about "delayed back spasm" and "an erection lasting more than four hours." I have an image of some guy who's just sexed it up for his lady only to spring out of bed in the middle of the night pitching a tent with a charlie horse in his lower back. Old guy and his girl are forced to hop into the midlife crisis-mobile and head out to the emergency room with the heated seats on high and a raincoat over Pop's nether region. Can I get an "ewww." To top it all off, one commercial concludes with the two would-be love-makers, hanging out in their own individual bathtubs strategically placed in one of three places: a mountain top, a sandy beach, and a vineyard - all places you'd never actually see a bathtub unless you were hallucinating - and you've got a recipe for some serious grossness, not to mention confusion. Why the bathtubs? Are you pretending that they're little boats? Is it to ease the back spasm? How's that four hour erection coming? If there was one thing that might propel me back into the working world it's these ads. For now, I just cover my eyes with a couch pillow and wait til Judge Judy comes back on.